So Funny You'll Need the Pause Button
I first saw this film with a friend and we were both laughing so hard we constantly had to stop the film just to recover. Richard Pryor is absolutely one of the funniest and most honest human beings who ever lived. As far as I'm concerned the only comedian who has even come close is Bernie Mac. But Bernie is tame compared to the full throttle antics of Pryor.
Pryor approaches the show knowing the audience has read a lot about his troubled personal life so he comes out and point blank explains everything. From how he ran down the block after setting himself on fire accidentally, to his troubled marriage, to his trip to Africa and how it changed him.
There's a lot of F-bombs (surprise) so you probably don't want to watch this movie in mixed company. If you're sensitive to "white people are so funny" routines then you should probably get a life. But if you wanna hear about how even the African hares intimidated Pryor ("I ain't never seen a rabbit look at me like that...
Pryors finest hour
Richard Pryor has influenced scores and scores of comedians and theres a good reason why....because hes one of the greats!!! This show which was filmed in Vegas is truly his finest hour. Taped after his infamous freebasing incident, he touches on his cocaine addiction....and as brutal as it was he makes it funny. Also, he talks about gangsters he used to work with and them telling murder stories!! No comedian would dare touch on things like this, and to make these things funny takes TALENT. Of which Pryor has an abundance of.
So if you want a revealing, awe inspiring, provacative and funny comedy show, this is it. Pryors finest hour, the show of himself.
Pryor at his turning point
This is a watershed performance for Richard Pryor. This was filmed shortly after the infamous freebasing fire nearly killed him in the early 1980s. Here, he talks frankly about that incident (the joke with the match is an amazing example of how he could find humor inhis darkest moments) and his need to quit drinking and dope. The tour de force here is the Africa routine. The cologne and body odor gag falls back on some un-PC stereotyping of Africans(of course, PC types aren't gonna watch this anyway), but his announced decision in this piece to never use the N-word again in comedy got a standing-o from me then and still makes me proud of him today. Sadly, this was his last truly great comedic work. From here on in, it would be unbearably bad movies and lackluster comedy like "Here and Now" before he succumbed to MS. So this is truly important as the last great work of Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor. Enjoy.
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